User blog:CarsonNCM/Big Brother US 15 Review
Big Brother 15 Big Brother US's first 90+ day season shows us exactly why Big Brother US should not have had a 90+ day season. No matter who won this Big Brother, we all lost. A CBS stalwart for well over a decade, the show isn’t exactly known for evolving with the times. The show is what it is, and the audience is remarkably steady and unfailing. Those that haven’t gotten in tune with the show’s banal wavelengths have generally held it at arm’s length, baffled as to the show’s appeal. Those that love the voyeuristic aspects, the gamesmanship, and the strategy tune in faithfully every year. But this past season tested the faith of those who watch religiously, whether solely consuming the thrice-weekly CBS airings or also diving in deep to Big Brother After Dark or the live feeds online. Part of the show’s struggle was self-inflicted. Much like Survivor or other long-running competition shows, Big Brother seeks to introduce as many new varieties of gameplay as possible while still keeping the core experience familiar for all involved. This year, the primary gameplay wrinkle took the form of “Big Brother MVP.” Originally, the idea was for viewers to nominate a third person for eviction each week on top of the two nominated by that week’s Head Of Household. The idea behind this twist was solid: Not only did it force players to think more strategically, but it also meant that simply coasting through a large portion of the game unnoticed posed its own form of risk. But like so many things this season, the show’s casting made things muddled and murky. With little to no information to go on about the newly-installed houseguests, America decided to make Elissa Slater, sister to Big Brother 13 winner Rachel Reilly, the MVP for each of the first few weeks. With an association with a two-time former player, Elissa didn’t earn her MVP status through anything other than name recognition. The other players recognized this pattern before it even started, which meant not only did people not have an incentive to play hard outside of HoH/Veto competitions, but alliances could use Elissa’s given status as part of their overall plan. CBS quickly realized its boneheaded move, but rather than fix it in a way to make the game more interesting, the network changed it in order to make the players seem both stupid and paranoid. The next few weeks saw America itself as the MVP, making the viewing public able to select the third member of the eviction pool each week. Because the viewing public is a fickle creature, the actions of the MVP made no sense to those on the inside of the house. The MVP turned into an amorphous, schizophrenic lunatic in the mind’s eye of other players. While this certainly amped up the tension in the house, it also completely obliterated any attempts at true strategy. Watching people hurl accusations at each other over the identity of the MVP didn’t create dramatic irony due to our awareness at home of the true nature of the twist. Rather, it made CBS look bad for robbing the players of any meaningful way of deducing the truth. Big Brother is a silly show, but also one filled with an ever-shifting series of circumstances that force players to think on their feet. It can be thrilling to watch someone thread the needle over the course of a season. But it’s only thrilling if CBS allows such threading to exist in the first place. With the MVP debacle, the network cut the show’s gameplay off at its knees. Still, all of this pales in comparison to the central storyline that has dragged Big Brother down this season: the insane number of times someone in the house said something racist, homophobic, or flat-out offensive. At first, these comments were contained within the live feeds online and never made it to air. But the sheer number of outrageously awful things uttered by certain cast members dominated online discussion of the show to the point where CBS had no choice but to (selectively) air (some of) the hurtful things casually deployed in conversation. Eventually, every episode of Big Brother started off with a title card that basically said: “Look. We know. We’re not happy about it either. But people, right? Some are crazy and say the kookiest things, including the ones that passed our less-than-rigorous screening processes.” The hurtful language and actions on the show stung all the more as the show’s African-American and Asian contestants got voted off one by one as those who spewed racial slurs behind their backs kept playing for the show’s half-million dollar prize money. To make matters worse, contestants such as Helen made deals with others such as Aaryn, who once dismissed Helen to GinaMarie by saying, "Dude, shut up, go make some rice." The latter replied that she wanted to punch Helen, because, “Maybe that'll make her eyes straight." In other words, Helen based her alliance on no one in the house thinking she would partner up with a racist. That was this season’s form of strategy. I KNOW, RIGHT? But it didn’t stop there, even with producers getting on the Big Brother loudspeaker and reminding them, to please refrain from using ethnic slurs. Again, this is a show that has, as a central conceit, every moment of a person’s life captured on camera. It’s easy to understand how some contestants might forget they are on camera in the middle of a heated debate, but these hate-filled phrases were often deployed in casual conversations. Rather than providing escapist summer entertainment like this show usually does, Big Brother 15 dragged viewers into an uncomfortable, unsettling, and unwelcoming atmosphere. Category:Blog posts